FSCA warns against unlicensed crypto investment companies

The Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) has issued a warning to South Africans to dissuade them from doing business with two unlicensed crypto ‘investment’ companies.

These firms, Afriinvest and MutualWealth, have been soliciting investment funds and promising huge and unrealistic returns in a manner similar to pyramid schemes. 

The details 

• In a notice issued on March 28, the regulator said these two companies promised their users as high as 10,000 rands in daily returns for investing. 
• The companies claimed to use artificial intelligence to carry out crypto trades on behalf of investors to maximize gains and reduce losses. 
• They also claimed to be endorsed by popular South African celebrities Steve Hofmeyr and Kallie Kriel as well as news publication Maroela Media, all of whom denied any connections to the companies. 
• The FSCA advised South Africans to avoid these companies and any other that do not clearly display their authorization status, or their licensing details do not match with the FSCA’s database. 
• A quick check showed that Afriinvest’s domain is now up for sale. On the other hand, MutualWealth’s website is still up. 
• However, while appearing sophisticated, the website was designed with website content management system WordPress typically used to publish blogs and other web content rather than hosting an investment platform. 

Key quote 

• The FSCA said: 

“It has come to the attention of the FSCA that Afriinvest and MutualWealth are soliciting funds from members of the public for investment purposes while promising unrealistic returns of up to R10 000 per day... these entities are not authorized in terms of any financial sector law to provide financial services to the public in South Africa.” 

Before now 

• South Africa is the most advanced African country in the implementation of crypto regulations. 
• By the end of 2024, it had granted licenses to 248 crypto firms, empowering them to offer financial services to their users. 
• Simultaneously, it also began to crack down on the activities of unregulated crypto firms still operational in the country. 
• In July, the FSCA formed a special team to probe unlicensed crypto activities in the country and announced investigations into 30 such unregulated companies. 
• The country is ramping up these regulatory activities as it fights to exit the Financial Action Task Force’s greylist which it has been on since 2023 because of its loose money laundering and terrorism financing rules.